Rick Hill is the Valero Alamo Bowl’s VP of Marketing and Communications. Prior to the bowl, Rick spent 6 years working for the Spurs, one season with Missions Baseball and two fruitless months trying to sell season tickets for the S.A. Riders.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Vaya Con Dios Tim, Part 2

I first met sports writer Tim Griffin in 1992 when he was pinch-hitting for another Express-News writer at a San Antonio Missions game.

Seven years later I got the chance to talk with Tim regularly when I started working for the Alamo Bowl. Ironically, my first conversation with him as a bowl employee was an argument about our disappointment in him for breaking the story that SYLVANIA was signing on as the Alamo Bowl’s title sponsor before it was officially announced.

Through the years I found him to be in the top echelon of hard-working and knowledgeable journalists. When he resigned from the Express-News in February 2008 to go work for ESPN.com, I sent in this Letter to the Editor to the paper.

Dear Editor:

I wanted to comment on David Flores’ well-written column on the Express-News Big 12 sports reporter Tim Griffin’s resignation for ESPN.com.

In my 10 years working for the Valero Alamo Bowl, I have found Tim’s passion for and dedication to college sports to be unequalled. It was exhibited every day in his writing and his dealings with me and the rest of our staff.

I also admire that he isn’t afraid to be on the front lines doing the legwork and asking the tough questions to get the story right regardless of potential criticisms. It’s no wonder visiting newspaper writers from across the country covering the Valero Alamo Bowl game each year always passed along high praise for Tim.

While the San Antonio Express-News still possesses a strong collection of talented sports journalists and the sports pages will continue to be my first read every morning, Tim will be missed.

Vaya con Dios Tim and don’t be afraid to use that ESPN.com money to retire the boat shoes and braided belt you bought with your first Express-News paycheck in 1984.

Rick Hill

Vice President of Marketing and Communications

Valero Alamo Bowl

Tim knew his work as an ESPN.com blogger covering the Big 12 would be a huge undertaking but he looked forward to what the World Wide Leader brought to the table as far as resources especially with travel, something that journalists crave and media outlets keep cutting back on each year.

Of course when I happened to see Tim on the road it was usually in a hotel lobby. I’d be on my way out to meet university officials for lunch before the game, while Tim was always heading back to his room to file more blogs, participate in an online chat or shoot a video for his blog (sorry Tim but most hostage videos have better quality camera work).

Thus it did not surprise me when I read Tim’s final blog post for ESPN.com last week. After two years of “filing from roadside parks, dark stadiums and even from a moving airplane a couple of times when the Federal Air Marshals weren’t looking” he was ready to move on to another opportunity.

What didn’t make sense to me was the amount of reader comments criticizing his work. Here’s a good representation of the negative posts:

• You are the most biased OU fan I’ve ever seen in my life.

• It always seemed Tim hated Texas. I have a ton of respect for OU (even though I do hate their guts) but I can’t read anymore “Stoops is the GREATEST” articles from this clown.

• Tim was ALL ABOUT TEXAS and TEXAS only.

• Tim is probably a good guy. Might even be intelligent. But his bias toward Bob Stoops reminds me of the NFLers biased opinions toward the geniuses Bill Beliceck and Bill Parcells.

• Tim seldom ever did enough research to know what he was actually talking about and spent most of his time talking out his backside. Hopefully ESPN gets someone unbiased this time around.

• So who is going to take over the duties of treating texas with a double standard?

• Your Texas and Big XII South (unhidden) bias was tiresome on much of your postings, so I hope the next person is more about the whole Conference.

• Maybe ESPN will finally find someone that covers the other 8 1/2 teams in the big 3 1/2. I follow a team outside of that 3 1/2 and my buddy and I have more relevant conversations about the Big 12 on a Saturday afternoon than this guy ever wrote.

And even though a good number of the 200+ comments thanked Tim for his dedication and wished him well, I felt the need to add my two cents so I wrote:

Tim:

Thanks for all your insight the last two years. I saw two very telling things in your last blog. One, the number of blog posts (4,131) and two the fact you referred to yourself as a “chronicler of Big 12 information.” To me this position with ESPN.com was based on the flawed concept that one person could possibly be a beat writer for 12 teams at the same time. ESPN.com’s coverage of each conference as it stands can do little more than disappoint the true fans wanting information on their favorite college teams. The current quantity over quality (i.e. breaking stories, in-depth coverage, etc.) with little back end editing made your job difficult. Unless ESPN changes its approach why would a veteran writer ever want to get on this treadmill?

Vaya Con Dios Tim. You’re a true pro and I can’t wait to see where you land so I can read stories more indicative of your Tim “Scoop” Griffin past instead of the Tim “I Posted 50 Blogs Before Lunch” Griffin writer ESPN.com wanted you to be.

ESPN does an unbelievable job of covering sports through its various platforms, but I think they are missing the boat with the current set-up of their college football coverage. They are launching new city specific sites to cater to passionate fans in particular locations and yet they expect one blogger to cover each conference.

It’s an opinion echoed by one reader who commented on Tim’s farewell blog. He wrote:

Tim certainly did a good job of creating traffic on this board, but then getting people to talk about college football is kind of like selling heroin to junkies, yes? The amount of blogs put out by Tim is staggering. It would be impossible to achieve anything close to perfection with that kind of quantity. Frankly though, I could live with a lot less quantity and a lot more quality. Hopefully the future blogger will be allowed to have less output but more strong writing. I’ll take 5 filet mignons over 20 Big Macs any day.

Tim, enjoy your well-deserved break with your family and keep us posted on your next stop. I can understand how your 24/7 schedule with ESPN.com the last two years didn’t allow you the time to take my 2008 recommendation to “retire the boat shoes and braided belt.” Since they haven’t been in fashion since you purchased them in 1984, I’d again advise you head to the mall. Maybe Dillard’s will extend their President’s Day sale an extra day or two for you.